The Pandorica Opens (TV story)
The Pandorica Opens 'is the twelfth episode of the fifth series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, directed by Toby Haynes and featured Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan as Amy Pond with Alex Kingston as River Song and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. Overview To be added Synopsis When an unknown van Gogh painting is found in a house in France in World War II, it's pretty obvious who it's meant for. It's left to Prime Minister Winston Churchill to try and contact the Doctor and does so in a roundabout way via an imprisoned Dr. River Song. When the Time Lord and his companion Amy finally see the painting, they find it foreshadowing a cataclysmic event surrounding the Pandorica, a mythical enclosure prophesied to contain the most dangerous thing in the universe. With every hostile entity across the cosmos coming preying for it, the Doctor is left with no option but to stand his ground and fight everything that's ever wanted to see him dead all at once... Plot France, 1890 - Vincent van Gogh is tended to by his doctor Gachet and landlord Madam Vernet as he suffers a mental breakdown in the middle of the night. Vernet looks over at one of his pieces and ponders on what it's supposed to be. The Cabinet War Rooms, 1941 - van Gogh's painting is brought before Prime Minister Winston Churchill by Professor Bracewell who tells him that he is supposed to deliver it. Churchill attempts to call the Doctor but reaches River Song in the Stormcage Containment Facility in 5145 and relays the information. River takes out the guard with her hallucinogenic lipstick and escapes, taking the painting from Liz 10's archive aboard Starship UK; River shows her the painting to stress the urgency of getting it to the Doctor. In need of time travel, River bluffs Dorium Maldovar of the Maldovarium into giving her a vortex manipulator; meanwhile, in the TARDIS, Amy looks over the engagement ring she'd found in the Doctor's jacket when he lands the ship on Planet One so they can take a look at the first words in recorded history on the planet's famous cliff face. Stepping it, the words read 'Hello, Sweetie' above a set of space-time coordinates. Taking the TARDIS to the coordinates, the arrive at a Roman camp in 102 A.D. where a legionary arrives to escort them to 'Cleopatra'. They find River being lorded over in a tent where she shows the Doctor and Amy the painting with the message for him. The painting, known as The Pandorica Opens, depicts the TARDIS broken apart and consumed in a fury of flames. Despite believing the Pandorica, a prison stated to contain 'the most feared thing in the universe' to be a myth, the Doctor looks at a map and deduces where it may be buried if it is real. They ride to Stonehenge on horseback and look for any sign of the Pandorica's presence. River detects signs of a search having been there already and the Doctor has her set up a device to open up a concealed passageway to an underground cavern wherein the find the Pandorica. Unbeknownst to them, the severed head of a Cyberman lies off to the side and starts moving; they also find a Cyberman's arm in the chamber. Examining the Pandorica, the Doctor and River find that it's already in the process of opening. The Doctor scans the four large pillars in the chamber to find that they are all transmitters, broadcasting a warning to everybody in the universe that the Pandorica is opening. River is concerned by the idea that everybody across time and space heard the message and wonders who else is coming; her computer suddenly receives various signals from incoming ships with masses of alien assailants, including Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Slitheen, Nestenes, Draconians and thousands more. All the battleships fly in overhead and the Doctor sends River back to the Roman encampment for reinforcements. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Amy observe the Pandorica and Amy questions him about the ring she found; before he can give a clearer answer, they are shot at by the Cyberman arm and retreat behind the Pandorica. Using Amy as a distraction, the Doctor gets behind it and disables it while the Cyberman wraps one of it's cables around Amy's ankle and drags her to the ground. The Doctor goes to help but he is shocked and knocked out by the arm. The Cyberhead continues to attack Amy, dropping the skull already inside and attempting to takes Amy's in it's place but she throws it aside. It shoots her with a tranq dart as the rest of the Cyberman appears, reinstalls it's head and continues to attack Amy. She barricades herself outside as a Roman sword bursts through the door, with the impaled Cyberman on the other side. Amy tries to get a clear look at the centurion that defeated it, but collapses when he removes his helmet to give his identity - Rory. The Doctor recovers and examines Amy and the destroyed Cyberman and it's weaponry; after a minute of inattentiveness, the Doctor finally notices Rory and points out to him that he was erased from history and, by rights, cannot be here. As he asks Rory what he can remember since the cave, the sky above descend on Stonehenge and the Doctor goes to confront them as the legionaries look on in shock. The Doctor takes to the stage and addresses all the alien warships, giving a grandiose speech stating that he will be defending the Pandorica and reminding them of how many times he's stopped them before proposing to each of them individually to let somebody else go first and the fleets pull away. River returns to the TARDIS and takes off, trying to bring it to the Doctor but it instead rockets away through the vortex to Amy's house on 26 June 2010. Meanwhile, Amy comes around and Rory is horrified to learn that she doesn't remember him at all; the Doctor snaps him out of his funk and passes him the ring, telling him to go and try. While he works on the Pandorica, he gets a call from River where she tells him that the centurions she'd sent him are all in a child's book in Amy's house and suspects a trap. Above ground, Rory speaks with Amy and she suddenly starts crying in his presence without knowing why; Rory suspects it's because she's starting to remember him. Suddenly, the Pandorica finally finishes cycling through it's locks and begins to open when all the centurions in the chamber suddenly go limp and rise up mechanically. Their hands drop away from their wrists and gun barrels emerge, revealing them to be Autons. Above, Rory starts to feel the change himself and tries to fight it. The TARDIS suddenly goes haywire and River finds herself locked inside. The Doctor is seized by the Auton centurions just as platoons of Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans, among others, teleport inside the chamber. As Rory fights the programming, Amy's memories of him suddenly return and she tells him to show her the ring, to prove to her and himself who he really is. The Doctor asks if the squads know what is inside the Pandorica when it finishes opening and reveals it's empty as the Daleks and Sontarans declare that it's ready for him. Despite his efforts, Rory's hand drops away and the gun emerges, firing a shot into Amy as she recoils in pain and tears. The Alliance drags the Doctor towards the Pandorica and seals him inside, Amy limps back dead in Rory's arms and River tries to get the TARDIS doors open as it starts overloading. The Alliance informs the Doctor that they'd all concluded that the cracks in space and time are his fault and set a trap for him using Amy's memories in order to seal him inside the Pandorica; the Doctor insists that the TARDIS exploding will cause the cracks and pleads with them to listen to him, but they simply lock him inside the Pandorica as he cries out in desperation. As River opens the TARDIS door to a wall, trapping her inside as the ship explodes and Rory cradles a dead Amy in tears, the skies around the Earth go up in a series of explosions, as the Doctor had warned, culminating in the Earth being the only thing remaining in an endless black void... Cast * The Doctor - Matt Smith * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan * River Song - Alex Kingston * Rory - Arthur Darvill * Vincent - Tony Curran * Bracewell - Bill Paterson * Winston Churchill - Ian McNeice * Liz Ten - Sophie Okonedo * Claudio - Marcus O'Donovan * Commander - Clive Wood * Commander Stark - Christopher Ryan * Cyber Leader - Ruari Mears * Judoon - Paul Kasey * Doctor Gachet - Howard Lee * Dalek - Barnaby Edwards * Dorium - Simon Fisher Becker * Guard - Joe Jacobs * Madame Vernet - Chrissie Cotterill * Marcellus - David Fynn Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Pandorica Opens'' page on '''Doctor Who Website